Patient user fees,a key issue at health ministers meeting next week

Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor will meet with her provincial counterparts next week where the issue of charging patients extra fees to access some health services is likely to come up. Petitpas Taylor has been tasked with making it clear to the provinces that user fees are illegal in Canada.

The federal government has quietly reimbursed Quebec the almost $10 million it withheld from the province two years ago as punishment for charging patients extra fees to access health services in the province.

In Petitpas Taylor's new mandate letter, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asks her to "make absolutely clear that extra-billing and user fees are illegal under Canada's public medicare system."

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